When did vampire movies become so pretentious? I’ve always believed that when done well – a few open graves here, a few puncture wounds there – you’ve got decent odds for some movie thrills.

But not anymore. Apparently the U.N. got involved, or the rhetoric department at a major American university, because now vampire movies must come with a subtext, an über-text and competing forms of Underworld Government.

“Night Watch,” from Russia with blood, poses yet another highfalutin scheme of regulating exactly when some prince of the darkness can sink his teeth in your neck. It seems that under Article III, Section V, of the Hapsburg Vampire Codes, we hereby recognize that Russia is populated by Others.

Others have some kind of power to detect other Others.

Light Others try to keep the Dark Others from recruiting innocent humans by drinking their blood. The Light Others have the Night Watch, of course, since that’s when the Dark Others would be out cruising; the Dark Others have the Day Watch, though since the Light Others are good folks who don’t need much watching, the Dark Others tend to spend much of their day at Starbucks.

Oh, and Dark Others need a “license” from the Light Others to turn a human into a vampire. Remember, incisors don’t kill people; the undead kill people.

Though “Night Watch” at times appears to take itself seriously, with special effects showing the map of throbbing veins in a human head, and numerous shots of decrepit Moscow warehouses, it also seems a nonstop parody of “Ghostbusters.”

A vortex of crows appears over a big Moscow high-rise. A moody, bookish woman gets her hair blown around a lot by the gale forces of evil, à la Sigourney Weaver. Many Light Others wear jumpsuits with logos and drive a van shooting flames from the tailpipes.

They sure could use OnStar, though, as they always seem to arrive late and two doors down from where the fang-tastic action is taking place.

Our protagonist is Anton (Konstantin Khobensky), a Light Other racked by guilt ever since seeking a witch’s help to abort his girlfriend’s baby. Twelve years later, he may have met the boy who is his son, and of course the boy is an Other deeply troubled by the choices he faces: Light Other, Dark Other or Part-Time Other With No Medical Benefits.

The odd thing about Russian vampire fighters is that they all seem remarkably incompetent, as if still protected by a communist union with a right-to-bite clause. Anton couldn’t sword-fight his way out of a funeral shroud, and they all seem as enthused about this Prince of the Night thing as a graveyard shift shelf-stocker at Wal-Mart.

Where have all the cool, confident, well-adjusted vampires gone, the dudes who wore velvet smoking jackets and the buxom ladies who smoked long cigarettes in my old copies of Eerie Magazine?

Retired to Florida, I guess, where the coffins are stacked like condos and the threatening sun shines all day long.

“Night Watch” was one of the most popular movies ever released in Russia. That just proves there’s no accounting for taste, in film or in human sacrifice.

Michael Booth was a health care & health policy writer at The Denver Post before departing in 2013. He started his journalism career as an assistant foreign editor at The Washington Post before moving with family to Denver and taking a brief stint with the Denver Business Journal. During a 25-year career at The Post, he covered city and state politics, droughts, entertainment and wrote Sunday takeouts, and was part of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for breaking news coverage.

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